EUCOM worried by Russia's non-strategic nuclear weapons

US European Command's (EUCOM's) biggest concern regarding Russia is its tactical nuclear weapons in Europe and its "troubling doctrine" of using those weapons to try de-escalating conflict.

General Curtis Scaparrotti, head of the EUCOM, told Congress on 28 March what alarms him most is "Moscow's substantial inventory of non-strategic nuclear weapons in the EUCOM [area of operations] and its troubling doctrine that calls on the potential use of these weapons to escalate its way out of a failing conflict".

Russia has a stated doctrine of potentially using tactical nuclear weapons to 'escalate to de-escalate' a conflict when its territorial integrity is in jeopardy; for example if a conventional attack exceeded Russian defensive capacity.

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